Israel busted again: another war crime

 

 

In a CNN exclusive, Israeli whistleblowers reveal accounts of abuse and torture at Sde Teiman, a prison in Israel's southern Negev region.

Eyewitnesses report detainees are subjected to severe beatings, with some sustaining broken bones and teeth. 

Additionally, another eyewitness described certain medical procedures inflicted on wounded detainees as psychological torture.

When does any international entity do anything meaningful to stop all of these crimes against humanity? Why does Israel keep getting a free pass from Washington, London and Brussels? 

Listen to what zionists actually say....Update from Rafah

 

Zionist troops gleefully chant their true intentions.....

 

‘We are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed’

Islamic Relief has released a statement with the account of a staff member in Gaza while also condemning Israel’s latest evacuation orders that, it said, have created utter “chaos and panic”.

Here’s what the charity’s worker said:

“I feel like this is the end. It feels like we will all be either trapped and killed in Gaza, or we will all be forced out. People have stayed in Rafah thinking it’s safe and hoping that global pressure would stop an invasion. But now we are abandoned by the world and everyone feels betrayed and let down.

“It’s an unimaginable scene, with tens of thousands of people looking for shelter. People are pale and thin, tired and afraid. There are children, women, elderly people and people with disabilities trying to flee in wheelchairs. Injured people have to leave hospital with recent bandages and bloodstains.

“In other parts of Gaza, the few bits of remaining land are now filling up with tents and shacks built of bits of wood and nylon.

“No humanitarian assistance has entered since Israel took over the Rafah crossing and Kerem (Karem) Abu Salem crossing closed. Bakeries have stopped working because they don’t have fuel, so we don’t have bread. We don’t have any water supply as that also depends on fuel deliveries, so yesterday we had to pay $50 just to refill our tank. Cars have stopped, so people coming from Rafah to the Middle Area are either walking or packed into vans carrying hundreds of people.

“Many people in Gaza are already suffering from famine, but now we are entering a new period of unprecedented hardship.”

 

Four al-Shifa Hospital medical staff killed, 42 detained

Among those found killed in al-Shifa Hospital are four health officials, said Gaza’s Health Ministry in a press statement, bringing the total number of medical staff killed during the war to 492.

In addition, the ministry said Israeli forces have detained 42 medical staff from the hospital, bringing the total number of detained health officials to 310.

The detained medical officials are held in “dire conditions” that threaten their lives, the ministry said, noting the recent death of surgeon Adnan al-Bursh in Israeli custody.

The ministry called on Israel to “immediately release all the medical staff…and to act swiftly to salvage what is left of our medical facility”. 

Fyodor Lukyanov: This is the question that could ultimately destroy EU-US unity

 

 

Western Europeans broadly see China as an opportunity, but Washington sees it as a threat. This has major geopolitical consequences

By Fyodor Lukyanov

Chinese President Xi Jinping is traveling in Europe for the first time in five years. His choice of capitals is calibrated. First was Paris, where French President Emmanuel Macron – who claims political leadership of the Western side of the continent – was joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Together with Macron, she was in Beijing last year. Then there was Budapest and Belgrade, two European countries (one in the European Union, the other outside) that are showing an increased willingness to cooperate with Beijing.

China’s relations with Western Europe are one of the most interesting issues in contemporary world politics. Their view of the EU differs from that of Russia. Moscow has long since come to the conclusion that the Old World has completely abandoned its independent foreign policy course by aligning itself with the US. Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Helsinki and others seem not to be deterred by the consequences for their own prosperity and influence. Beijing, however, believes that the EU will not give up its autonomy, even if its dependence on American strategy grows. In other words, China thinks that a precise and active policy can create a series of incentives for the Western Europeans that will slow down their drift towards the US. And, accordingly, it will limit the bloc’s participation in a possible future military-political confrontation between the Washington and Beijing.

The research question, as they say in academic papers, is clear: Is the “collective West” a solid and sustainable union, or is the unity achieved so far more flimsy, camouflaging a growing divergence of interests?

The US sees China as a strategic rival for decades to come. Meanwhile, the EU doesn’t see it as a direct threat, although it is wary of Beijing’s growing power, including in the European region. The US sees Russia as a direct threat to European stability, but not as a serious threat to itself. But, of course, Western Europe is very afraid of Russia, and this fear is growing, leading to speculation about a variety of scenarios. At the same time, the US needs Western Europe for its strategy of containing China.

First, in the economic and technological sense, the EU should not develop cooperation with China in areas where the US wants to limit Beijing. Concurrently, the bloc needs the US to contain Russia in the military and military-technical sense. There are discussions about building up the EU’s own capabilities, but firstly they are rather abstract and secondly the process will take years. There is already an awareness of Western Europe’s over-dependence on America, but there is no way to solve the problem, and this is pushing the Old World to try to keep Washington as close as possible.

China is guided by the logic of economic pragmatism – why should the EU reduce its own capabilities? Indeed, for the last three or four decades, the bloc has dominated the world, and China has been its main beneficiary, transforming itself from a poor and backward country into a contender for world domination. Now, however, the logic of strategic competition is coming to the fore, and market profit is becoming a casualty.

But China has its own reasons. From Beijing’s point of view, the general direction of global development is towards economic interdependence and the need for everyone to expand the space for such relations. The renaissance of blocs, reminiscent of the Cold War, is not a prototype for the future of politics but a reversion to the past, a rearguard action of the twentieth century. In fact, the rivals of the time (Washington and Moscow) are trying to finish a game that didn’t end with a formalized result at the turn of the eighties and nineties. China is very afraid of being drawn into this process, believing, not unreasonably, that the side that avoids costly (in any sense of the word) conflicts will benefit most.

Hence China’s cautious stance on the Ukraine issue. Beijing firmly avoids criticizing Russia and expresses understanding for the reasons that prompted the military operation. However, it does not express direct support and treads very carefully so as not to give Washington an excuse to impose sanctions on its companies for violating the Western embargo on Russia. We should not expect a different position from Beijing, and it is even possible that the rhetoric about the need for a peaceful end to the conflict will intensify. A certain indicator will be the conference on Ukraine (initiated by Kiev) to be convened in Switzerland next month. The presence or absence of the Chinese will give it a different tone. Indeed, this is clearly what the organizers themselves believe.

Whether China will be able to weather the current storms to gain even more weight on the world stage remains to be seen. The same is true for the US, although much will depend on the outcome of the November elections. Putin and Xi Jinping will have much to discuss when they meet, apparently next week.

~  Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club. 

Israel's 'Wolf Pack' surveillance system

 

Join MintPress director Mnar Adley as she embarks on walking through the city of Hebron, where her family originates from. Known to Palestinians as the city of al-Khalil, Hebron is the largest and most populated Palestinian city in the West Bank. 

Dubbed by Israel as 'Hebron Smart City' -- this is where Israel tests its Draconian surveillance technology on the Palestinian population as part of what is called the Wolfpack surveillance system. 

Mnar Adley takes us along her journey as she crosses through the most heavily armed and surveilled checkpoints in the world where Israel has set up an automated apartheid system to track Palestinian movement. 

Adley is joined by Palestinian activist Izzat Karake from Youth Against Settlements who chronicles the struggle against settler colonialism where armed Jewish settlers supported by Israeli soldiers are trying to take over the city to Judaize the quarter.

Hypersonics verses Missile Defense - Pentagon losing the battle

 

 

US Ground-Based Interceptor $85 million per missile based in Alaska. GBI has the worst testing success of any Pentagon 'missile defense' system

This article illustrates how the Pentagon has been wasting massive money on so-called high-tech systems that have now been made virtually useless by 'hypersonics' technologies that can beat 'missile defense'. 

 

More importantly it reveals how the US current $35 trillion in debt is haunting the Pentagon as they aim to wage wars against Russia and China (and Iran). 

 

The chickens are coming home to roost. 

 

Maine's Sen. Angus King (Independent), featured in the article, does not have a problem with the wars - he just wants to make sure the US can win them and cover the costs. 

 

Wouldn't it be cheaper and much safer for everyone if the US-NATO gave up on their grand plans to remain as the western rulers of the world? 

 

Thx to Stephen Shaw for sharing this article 

 

Bruce 

 

Sputnik 

US Defenseless Against Russian Hypersonic Missiles and Iranian Drones - Explosive DoD Testimony

An otherwise boring and formulaic briefing by senior Pentagon officials to lawmakers from the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces went off the rails on Wednesday after subcommittee Chairman Angus King took the floor and forced Department of Defense officials to reveal that North America is helpless against adversaries it has spent years agitating around the world.

“The truth is we have no defense for hypersonic missiles – yes or no? Mr. Hill, any defense on the hypersonic missile? You’re the commander of an aircraft carrier in the Greenland Gap. If we have a hypersonic missile launched from Murmansk [traveling at] 6,000 miles an hour, what do you do?” King asked, querying Deputy Secretary of Defense for Space and Missile Defense John Hill.

“We have some systems to defend in the terminal stage but we need more, you’re correct, Senator King… that our hypersonic defenses are inadequate and we do need [more]. SM-6 is in the Navy’s terminal range [capability], the Patriot – I’ll let General Gainey speak to the specifics on that. Those are examples but no argument, we need to focus on hypersonic defenses,” Hill responded.
“So why are we talking about 2029 and even stretching that out? This is next year kind of stuff. I don’t get your budget,” King countered, referencing the lack of focus on anti-hypersonic capabilities in current US defense spending plans.

“What we faced in the budget this year – it was a difficult year, particularly with the Fiscal Responsibility Act caps that we had to work with. There were must-pay bills that we had to work with for the personnel, the salaries, the health care, inflation costs. When you get down to the point of where you get down to the discretionary types of things where you can really control your choices,” Hill said.

“But that’s your mission – your mission is missile defense,” King retorted.

“The budget decisions are made at a higher level and so you’re trading off between readiness or your future investments,” Hill said.

“Well let me put the question another way: let’s say what happened on April 14 [Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attack on Israel, ed.] happened over the Arctic Ocean – 300 missiles, drones, UAVs came across the Arctic Ocean toward Canada and North America. Could we do what Israel and we and other countries did – could we knock down 99 percent of those missiles coming in?” King asked.

“No chairman,” Air Force General Gregory Guillot, commander of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), responded.  

 

Avangard: Hypersonic Glide Vehicle Russia Credits With ‘Nullifying’ US Missile Defenses

 
 

“That’s of concern,” King said. “What’s the gap – is the gap interceptors, is the gap sensors? How come they could do it over there and we can’t do it here?” he asked.

“Part of the reason, Mr. Chairman, is because they have the deployed forces. So at the current time we have the capability in the services but they’re not assigned to Northcom’s area of responsibility,” Guillot said. “Also, just the numbers of the assets that we have in the region right now would not be sufficient to meet the attack of that size that the Iranians [used].”

“And in fact our capability in the region is really aimed toward North Korea, isn’t that correct? [...] It’s not designed to take on Russia or China. But that’s where the threat is. What’s the cost of one GBI?” King asked, referring to the US’ Ground-Based Interceptor anti-ballistic missile system.

“Sir, the GBI is approximately $80-$85 million,” Hill replied.

“One missile to intercept an incoming missile is $80 million,” an astonished King said. “Well in the Red Sea, the Houthis are sending $20,000 drones and we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost $4.3 million. The math doesn’t work on that, gentlemen. It just doesn’t work. What are we thinking?”

The senator went on to grill Pentagon officials for spending just one 1,000th of the defense budget on directed energy defenses, asking “what in the hell are you guys thinking?”

“Directed energy is the answer. It costs 25 cents a shot, and the budget’s gone down from $140 to $15 million a year. That’s a scandal. We can’t possibly defend ourselves with $80 million missiles. There’s not enough money in the whole world for that,” King emphasized.

“So I’ll look forward to some further response because right now, we don’t have much missile defense. Whether it’s to hypersonics, to drones, I’d like you guys to go back and really rethink what is your mission. If your mission is missile defense, we need to reorient what it is you do,” the senator summed up.

May 9: March of the Immortal Regiment

 

In 2019 the Global Network organized a Russia Study Tour that took us to Moscow, Crimea and St. Petersburg.

We were in St. Petersburg on May 9 and our delegation of 22 people joined the annual 'March of the Immortal Regiment' that honored those 30 million Soviet citizens who fought and died during the WW2 Nazi invasion. People carried photos of their relatives from that horrid war. 

(In comparison the U.S. lost about 407,000 troops in WW2.)

In the photo above some of our delegation are featured. I am carrying a photo of my two uncles who were in the U.S. navy and had their ships sunk by the Nazis. Miraculously they both survived the ordeal but died at a fairly young age. Some in the family believed they died from the legacy of the war trauma.

 

On that day of May 9, 2019 it was reported that 1.2 million people marched in the St. Petersburg event. It was an amazing experience for all of us. (These marches took place all over Russia and in many cities of the former Soviet Union.)

After the march was over we had to take the long walk back along the famous Nevsky Prospect to our hotel. I played a game by counting how many pieces of trash I saw along our return walk. I counted not more than five. I imagined a similar sized crowd marching in the U.S. and thought of the truckloads of trash that would have to be picked up afterward. 

The whole experience taught me alot about the character of the Russian people. First, and most important, they have not forgotten the massive sacrifices they made to defeat the Nazis. Virtually every family in Russia lost loved ones during that period. They know what war is really like - something the American people have no real clue about.

 

It should also be remembered that during the last 500 years Russia has repeatedly been invaded by European nations. (During 1918 with the help of the U.S.).

Just about every 100 years Europe has attacked Russia attempting to take control of their vast resource base. Sweden (multiples times), France, Germany, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Britain and now the U.S. and NATO, using Nazified Ukraine as the excuse and the proxy, in the attempt to take western control of Russia.

The Russians are very clear about the Nazis. They know them well and have a deep commitment (after the loss of 30 million in WW2) to never let it happen again. That is why after the US-EU orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014 Russia knew that soon enough war would be coming their way once again.

For eight years Russia did its best to dissuade the western nations from their attacks on the Russian-ethnic Donbass region in eastern Ukraine - right along the Russian border. But eventually, after at least 15,000 were killed and 35,000 were wounded, Moscow knew they had to intervene and did so in 2022 with the Special Military Operation.

The big question these days, as Ukraine's war on the Donbass is collapsing, how will the U.S.-NATO react? Will they send in troops from Poland, Romania, France, Germany and from other NATO states? Or will NATO acknowledge that the 500 year western colonial dream of taking over Russia has again failed?

Let's hope and pray Washington, London and Brussels finally wake up and back-off before our current version of WW3 takes a turn for the worse.

Bruce

U.S. economic house of cards revealed

 

Gotta see this one - top Washington Economic Advisor can't explain why just printing more $$$ (which is inflationary) is a bad thing.

We are in trouble.

 

 

By taking over Gaza border crossing to Egypt Israel has breached Camp David accords and declared war. 

Will Egypt respond? 

Be serious 

Cuban students in solidarity

 

Hundreds of students gathered at the University of Havana to condemn the police repression of US student protesters and show their support for Palestine. 

On the same steps, students were repressed by the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s — one of the sparks of the Cuban revolution.

All over the world people of good heart and soul are on the streets.

But those in power in Tel Aviv, Washington, London and Brussels push the war on Palestine with frozen hearts.

They reveal their true agenda to drive Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank. The zionists wish to create 'Greater Israel' at any cost. An ever expanding western military base in the region.

But Israel is digging their own grave. The zionists have put their nation's future on the line and by doing so have exposed their cold soul to the entire globe. 

Israel has lost the war and they have lost the public relations battle. People have become sick of the constant stream of lies coming from the zionists.

‘No Partial Deals’

Umm Khalid Shahada also wants the war to stop.

“We do not want a partial ceasefire deal, followed by a continuation of the war on Gaza as it happened last November,” she told The Palestine Chronicle.

“Hamas’ demands – stopping the war, Israel’s withdrawal, and the return of the refugees – are the demands of every Palestinian who has lived through pain and hardship during this horrific war,” Umm Khalid continued.

 On Tuesday, Esteban Carrillo, a Beirut-based Ecuadorian journalist and current editor for The Cradle, joined Sputnik’s Fault Lines to discuss the ongoing attacks on Rafah, as well as the political implications that those attacks will pose on US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“For weeks now, there's been this effort to make it seem like it's Hamas that doesn't want a deal, that they don't want to sit down at the table to accept Israeli demands. Where, in reality, it's the opposite,” Carrillo explained. “Hamas has been very steadfast in what they're asking for. And it's Israel who doesn't want a lasting ceasefire. This is really the crux of the issue here.”

What's next?

Will western colonial powers (now entering serious decline) have the courage to force the zionist global cabal to stop their madness?

Will the Biden administration and Congress have the guts to reject the current orders from AIPAC to support the zionist genocide of the Palestinian people to the final end?

Time will tell. 

In the meantime we must stay in the streets and force our collective corporate dominated governments to change policy or face even more severe social disruptions.

Bruce

How CIA and MI6 created ISIS

 

By Kit Klarenberg

Within just 24 hours of the horrific mass shooting in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on March 22nd, which left at least 137 innocent people dead and 60 more critically wounded, US officials blamed the slaughter on ISIS-K, Daesh’s South-Central Asian branch. For many, the attribution’s celerity raised suspicions Washington was seeking to decisively shift Western public and Russian government focus away from the actual culprits - be that Ukraine, and/or Britain, Kiev’s foremost proxy sponsor.

Full details of how the four shooters were recruited, directed, armed, and financed, and who by, are yet to emerge. The Kremlin claims to have unearthed evidence that Kiev’s SBU were the ultimate architects, which the agency denies, charging that Russian authorities knew about the attack and permitted it to happen, in order to ramp up its assault on Ukraine. It has been reported that the killers received funds from a cryptocurrency wallet belonging to ISIS’ Tajikistan wing.   

Whatever the truth of the matter, it is certain that the four individuals responsible had no clue who or what truly sponsored their monstrous actions. Contrary to the group’s mainstream portrayal, as inspired by fanatic, extreme religious fundamentalism, ISIS are primarily guns for hire. At any given time, they act at the behest of an array of international donors, bound by common interests. Funding, weapons, and orders reach its fighters circuitously, and opaquely. There is almost invariably layer upon layer of cutouts between the perpetrators of an attack claimed by the group, and its ultimate orchestrators and financiers.

Given ISIS-K is currently arrayed against China, Iran, and Russia - in other words, the US Empire’s primary adversaries - it is incumbent to revisit their “parent” group’s origins. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere just over a decade ago, before dominating mainstream media headlines and Western public consciousness for several years before vanishing again, at one stage the group occupied vast swaths of Iraqi and Syrian territory, declaring an “Islamic State”, which issued its own currency, passports, and vehicle registration plates.
    

   

Devastating military interventions independently launched by the US and Russia wiped out that demonic construct in 2017. The CIA and MI6 were no doubt immensely relieved. After all, extremely awkward questions about how precisely ISIS came to be were comprehensively extinguished. As we shall see, the terror group and its caliphate did not emerge in the manner of lightning on a dark night, but due to dedicated, determined policy hatched in London and Washington, implemented by their spying agencies.

‘Continuingly Hostile’

RAND is a highly influential, Washington DC-headquartered “think tank”. Bankrolled to the tune of almost $100 million annually by the Pentagon and other US government entities, it regularly disseminates recommendations on national security, foreign affairs, military strategy, and covert and overt actions overseas. These pronouncements are more often than not subsequently adopted as policy.

For example, a July 2016 RAND paper on the prospect of “war with China” forecast a need to fill Eastern Europe with US soldiers in advance of a “hot” conflict with Beijing, as Russia would undoubtedly side with its neighbour and ally in such a dispute. It was therefore considered necessary to tie down Moscow’s forces at its borders. Six months later, scores of NATO troops duly arrived in the region, ostensibly to counter “Russian aggression”.

Similarly, in April 2019 RAND published Extending Russia. It set out “a range of possible means” to “bait Russia into overextending itself,” so as to “undermine the regime’s stability.” These methods included; providing “lethal aid” to Ukraine; increasing US support for the Syrian rebels; promoting “regime change in Belarus”; exploiting “tensions” in the Caucasus; neutralising “Russian influence in Central Asia” and Moldova. Most of that came to pass thereafter.

In this context, RAND’s November 2008 Unfolding The Long War makes for disquieting reading. It explored ways the US Global War on Terror could be prosecuted once coalition forces formally left Iraq, under the terms of a withdrawal agreement inked by Baghdad and Washington that same month. This development by definition threatened Anglo dominion over Persian Gulf oil and gas resources, which would remain “a strategic priority” when the occupation was officially over.

“This priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war,” RAND declared. The think tank went on to propose a “divide and rule” strategy to maintain US hegemony in Iraq, despite the power vacuum created by withdrawal. Under its auspices, Washington would exploit “fault lines between [Iraq’s] various Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts”, while “supporting authoritative Sunni governments against a continuingly hostile Iran”:

“This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations, unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces…The US and its local allies could use nationalist jihadists to launch proxy campaigns to discredit transnational jihadists in the eyes of the local populace…This would be an inexpensive way of buying time…until the US can return its full attention to the [region]. US leaders could also choose to capitalize on the sustained Shia-Sunni Conflict…by taking the side of conservative Sunni regimes against Shiite empowerment movements in the Muslim world.”
    

An incomprehensible graphic from the RAND report

‘Great Danger’

So it was that the CIA and MI6 began supporting Sunni “nationalist jihadists” throughout West Asia. The next year, Bashar Assad rejected a Qatari proposal to route Doha’s vast gas reserves directly to Europe, via a $10 billion, 1,500 kilometre-long pipeline spanning Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. As extensively documented by WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables, US, Israeli and Saudi intelligence immediately decided to overthrow Assad by fomenting a local Sunni rebellion, and started financing opposition groups for the purpose.

This effort became turbocharged in October 2011, with MI6 redirecting weapons and extremist fighters from Libya to Syria, in the wake of Muammar Gaddafi’s televised murder. The CIA oversaw that operation, using the British as an arm’s length cutout to avoid notifying Congress of its machinations. Only in June 2013, with then-President Barack Obama’s official authorisation, did the Agency’s cloak-and-dagger connivances in Damascus become formalised - and later admitted - under the title “Timber Sycamore”.    

    
At this time, Western officials universally referred to their Syrian proxies as “moderate rebels”. Yet, Washington was well-aware its surrogates were dangerous extremists, seeking to carve a fundamentalist caliphate out of the territory they occupied. An August 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report released under Freedom of Information laws observes that events in Baghdad were “taking a clear sectarian direction,” with radical Salafist groups “the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”

These factions included Al Qaeda’s Iraqi wing (AQI), and its umbrella offshoot, Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The pair went on to form ISIS, a prospect the DIA report not only predicted, but seemingly endorsed:

“If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria…This is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regime…ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create great danger.”

Despite such grave concerns, the CIA continued to dispatch unaccountably vast shipments of weapons and money to Syria’s “moderate rebels”, well-knowing this “aid” would almost inevitably end up in ISIS hands. Moreover, Britain concurrently ran secret programs costing millions to train opposition paramilitaries in the art of killing, while providing medical assistance to wounded jihadis. London also donated multiple ambulances, purchased from Qatar, to armed groups in the country.

Leaked documents indicate the risk of equipment and personnel from these efforts being lost to Al-Nusra, ISIS, and other extremist groups in West Asia was judged unavoidably “high” by British intelligence. Yet, there was no concomitant strategy for countering this hazard at all, and the operations continued apace. Almost as if training and arming ISIS was precisely the desired outcome. 

~  Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions.